


Public Displays of Affection

by Pollydoodles



Series: The Wider Pizza-Verse [11]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 22:40:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7380298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollydoodles/pseuds/Pollydoodles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy endures an awkward breakfast with the team after her dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Public Displays of Affection

Darcy had slunk her way to the kitchen, still pyjama-clad, and hoping desperately not to run into anyone else. She was still reeling a little from the unfortunately vivid dream that she’d conjured, and she wasn’t quite ready to face the outside world and those who inhabited it. She did, however, also have a deep need for food. In the end, the rumble in her stomach won out. 

She was not in luck. 

Darcy fought the urge to roll her eyes as she entered the kitchen. She’d probably never seen it so full. Barton, lounging half-on, half-off one of the stools and busily shovelling cornflakes into his face like he’d been starved for a month. Natasha, perched elegantly across from him, wearing one of Barton’s sweatshirts with the long sleeves covering her wrists and sipping at a steaming cup of black coffee, eyes closed in pleasure as she did so. 

Stark, sweatpants on his lower half and, inexplicably, a shirt and tie on his upper half, leaned against the breakfast bar, absentmindedly eating leftover pizza straight from the box as he tapped fervently left-handed, his fingers dancing across the tablet screen perched next to him. Two-thirds of a cup of coffee - that Darcy would have been willing to bet her television on was stone cold - sat across from him, neglected. 

Pepper smiled at her gently from the breakfast table, legs crossed neatly and the only person in the kitchen wearing what could be considered proper clothing. Jane blinked at her sleepily and raised a hand in silent acknowledgement, pyjama trousers hanging low on her hips and a t-shirt that had seen several better days loose and exposing one shoulder. Thor, one arm casually around Jane’s waist, stared contemplatively at the toaster and waited for it to pop. 

Darcy, with a groan and a grumble under her breath, slid into the chair next to Jane and stole a piece of toast off the other woman’s plate. Jane passed over the marmalade without looking at her and Barton pushed a knife towards her from the other side of the table. Darcy focused with some difficulty, sleep-drunk and staring at the marmalade jar in front of her with the silvery knife in her right hand. 

Thor reached around her from behind and helpfully unscrewed the lid before patting her gently on the head. Darcy managed a tired half smile of thanks over her shoulder in his general direction before she dug the knife into the jar and heaped out a generous helping of marmalade onto the slice of toast. She spread it, poorly, leaving one corner completely bare and loading far too much in another. 

Darcy shoved it in her mouth anyway, chewing robotically and her mind on far different things than breakfast. 

She felt guilty as all hell for the way that her mind had conjured those images of Bucky, the way her traitorous mind had conjured images of him pressed against her and the feel of his lips on her skin. It still burned across her now, as though it had actually happened, and Darcy felt a hot roll of shame flood her system, as though the people sat around the breakfast bar would be able to see the trail of dream kisses he’d left upon her. 

She had no business thinking those things, even if he had kissed her. Bucky was … Bucky was both the best thing in her life, and the worst. The best because seeing him progress and grow and gain more confidence in himself put a smile on her face like nothing else. The worst because being that close to him, the way that he could crawl into bed with her and sling an arm over her waist without a second thought, the way it burned up inside her when it did nothing to him; was torture. 

And yet.

And yet, he’d kissed her. For the barest moment, really, but he’d done it. Pressed her against the wall, caged his arms around her and claimed her as if she were his own. 

She could still taste the memory of him on her lips, and it both comforted and worried her. Bucky was… Bucky had become everything. When he’d first turned up, all darting eyes and hunched shoulders, shy of everyone and almost everything, she’d been a little worried all told. She’d been put in mind of a wild animal, one scared and afraid it would be hurt again. Darcy felt sorry for him, but she also knew an animal in pain could - and would - lash out. 

It was a sentiment that had been shared all too readily by the rest of the team, and they’d worked, with some unspoken agreement between them all that hadn’t quite reached as far as Darcy’s ears, to put space between him and themselves. Skirting around him, changing topics when he entered a room. It was for his benefit, Thor had explained to her once, with kindness in his eyes and a large hand covering one of her own. He’d been broken, damaged, by the things that had been done to him, and it was better for him to have space to work through that. 

Steve, shoulders tense and his forehead creased, had put a tentative hand to Bucky’s arm and Darcy had watched as the dark haired man had shied away from the contact, an instinctive flinch that had Steve dropping his hand to his side as though he'd burned it. 

He’d been quiet, uncommunicative, watchful. 

Darcy was used to that sort of behaviour. Jane and Selvig were able to lose themselves so completely in their work that she’d gotten very used to operating on her own and around people who weren’t quite aware that she was in their presence. She’d spent the first three months of her internship left so entirely to her own devices by the absent-minded scientists that she’d graduated quickly to considering whether creating an imaginary friend would be considered by outsiders as a sign of an impending breakdown, or merely a canny survival technique. In the end, she’d opted to just carry on as normal as if they were listening. 

And so, ignoring the others, she’d quietly gone about applying the same mentality to Bucky. 

She talked to him, told him about her day, chattered as though he would answer back and did not expect that he would. She made extra sandwiches at lunchtime and left them in front of him. She cleared the plates away again hours later, sometimes eaten, often times not. She settled next to him where he was sat on the couch, asked him what he wanted to watch and then flicked to something she thought he might like when he remained mute beside her, always careful not to touch. 

Slowly and by the by, he’d come around. 

One day, he’d asked in a clear voice, if he could have ham in his sandwiches. Darcy had stopped dead, heart racing and back turned to him, as she processed what he’d said. Swallowing hard, she’d turned on her heel and found him gazing cautiously back at her from the other side of the kitchen counter. He ate ham sandwiches every single day for a month until she offered him beef.

A couple of weeks after that, he started to appear by the couch when she was already there, hesitant and awkward. She had made a big show of shuffling up, though there was more than enough space already for him, to show him that he could sit; if he wanted. 

He did. 

He had sat, a foot away from her, and, over time, slowly edged nearer until his thigh was almost - but not quite - brushing up against hers. Darcy had willed herself to sit still, to not look at him as he crept nearer to her. It had taken days, she thought, possibly even weeks - she hadn’t been counting - for him to finally relax into the couch next to her. 

When he asked if she could find the movie he liked - one she couldn’t remember the name of but that they had sat in abject silence together watching a week earlier - Darcy had stared at him for a full minute before snatching up the remote and flicking quickly to the TiVO section, hunting for it. Steve, eyes wide and reeling back on his heels slightly, had been both amazed and pleased to hear it when she’d wheeled breathless into the garage and clung to the doorframe to relay it to him. 

Bucky had started to follow her, dogging her footsteps like a particularly persistent shadow that tagged at her heels. Jane, who hadn’t actually noticed for about three weeks, had dropped a beaker of something or other when she finally noticed the silent bulk sat at the other end of the lab table. The resultant evacuation had given Darcy a little time to whisper hurriedly into the other girl’s ear and bring her up to speed. 

She still remembered the first time he’d smiled at her, slow like honey, and she’d watched it creep over his face and light up his features. It was, she thought, the first time she’d really considered how handsome he was. It might well have been the point she’d fallen in love with him, but Darcy was trying hard not to dissect that too much. 

She raised a hand to her head, pushing back unruly curls and realising at too late a moment that she had marmalade on her fingers. Sticky strands of brunette hair clumped together, tangling in her fingers as well, and she groaned, rolling her head back on her neck and thinking she might as well just crawl back into bed and stay there, for all the good she was likely to get done that day. 

It was at that point that Bucky wandered in, and kissed her. 

Full, on the lips and with his hand gently wrapped around her neck, sliding up to cup her chin and tilt it towards his own. His eyes were closed and, after a moment - a brief, almost hysterical moment where she thought she’d lost her damn mind - Darcy closed hers too. He was soft against her, gentle and warm and she leaned into him almost unconsciously. 

The kitchen stilled around them. 

“Is this…” Tony trailed off, momentarily - and possibly historically - lost for words. “Is this what we do now?”

Bucky pulled back and smiled slowly, eyes only on her and Darcy felt her heart slam into her rib cage a thousand times and more to see the look on his face. She blinked hard and shook her head, just about resisting the urge to pinch at the soft skin of her upper arm. If it were another dream, she’d like it to last a little longer. 

And have a little less marmalade covered hair. 

And quite a considerable lesser audience. 

“I win, right?” Barton said, looking around with a forkful of scrambled eggs hovering halfway to his lips. “The betting pool? I definitely win.”

“Hardly.” Nat answered, idly flipping the newspaper laid out on the kitchen counter in front of her, still sipping at her coffee and paying approximately no attention to Bucky and Darcy. “That was all done and dusted weeks ago.”

“But now it’s real,” the archer pointed out, gesturing with his loaded fork at the back of Bucky’s head, inclined towards Darcy’s and losing half of his egg to the waiting labrador at his feet. Lucky snaffled most of it as it dropped into his open mouth, then enthusiastically licked around the floor and up the legs of the stool Barton was perched on, just in case he’d missed any vital reserves. 

Thor nudged his elbow as delicately as he was capable of doing, into Jane's side. The little scientist looked up blearily from where she'd been doodling equations on a napkin and tilted her head at him in a quizzical manner. He cleared his throat and jerked his head towards Darcy, sat with her back to Jane and still staring up into Bucky's eyes with his hand gently touched to her cheek. Jane shook her head, confused, and Thor sighed. Laying his toast on the counter he placed one large hand either side of Jane's shoulders and spun her carefully. 

"Oh," She said, raising a hand to her mouth, eyes widening a little as she looked at the brunette intern perched on a stool in front of her. "Darcy's got marmalade in her hair."

Nat arched an eyebrow at Thor from the other end of the kitchen counter, and he mouthed 'all nighter' back at her over Jane's head. 

Steve slid into the kitchen, socked feet providing little grip and sending him nearly into the counter and narrowly avoiding knocking Nat from her stool. The redhead did not pause to look up at him as he twisted his bulk at the last possible moment and saved himself from crashing into her. 

“Coffee?” She suggested mildly, turning the page and running a finger across a headline that proclaimed in capital letters that kale was no longer considered a superfood. 

“Never mind damn coffee,” Tony exclaimed from the other side of the counter. “Is this your doing?” He pointed with the tablet stylus towards the dark-haired soldier who’d now turned from Darcy and was on his knees on the tiled floor laughing as Lucky licked his way from his collarbone to his eyebrows. 

“He’s always had a close relationship with the dog.” Steve shrugged, knowing full well what Tony was referring to, and opting to play the innocent. “I’ll take some bacon, if it’s going.”


End file.
